I Take What I Can Get

For about two weeks, Lola has been working on a book for her Language Arts class. The assignment was designed to help them learn all aspects of writing a story--figures of speech, active voice, rising and falling action, etc. etc. etc. She was given a rubric, and I was tasked with making sure she followed it exactly. It's probably important for you to understand that she gets $100 from her father if she gets all A's. Not that she wouldn't be every bit as conscientious...yeah, whatever. Each day, she's come home, slammed her thousand-pound book bag on the counter and informed me, "You've got homework."

I've gone over and over her epic tale about a Viking named Thor and his best friend, Erik, who happens to be Thor's beard. Our discussions have included an argument over whether shaving cream coming out of a bottle sounds more like fwaaaaap or pffffffffft, and a heated debate regarding the best Viking names. All I really want to do in the evenings is catch up on Boardwalk Empire and watch SVU reruns, so I prefer it when she has Math homework. She wouldn't dream of asking me for help with that.

Thursday night was the final revision. She opened the manuscript on the laptop, handed me the rubric and a pencil, and instructed me to find and note the page numbers for the different types of characterization while I was proofreading. Then she left me alone in my room. I started with the title page, where she'd put a period after the title. REALLY?? I scrolled to the next page:

Let me tell you, even though she'd used two different tenses, I was incredibly touched. To tears. This was so unlike her, this tender, thoughtful side.

When she came back upstairs a little while later, I patted the bed beside me and she sat down. I stared deeply into her big amber eyes:

TR:  Lola, that was so sweet of you to dedicate your book to me. I didn't expect that. I'm truly honored.

Lo: (Looking at me as though I'd coughed up a duck) You do realize that we were REQUIRED to do a dedication, right? I mean it's right there on the rubric.

Silence...

Silence...

TR: You couldn't just let me have that?

Lo: Huh, believe what you want.